The South Africa blog bank…

Naturally there were a lot of things that took place in South Africa, and there was no way to blog all of them and not have a novel on my hands. So, we established the “blog bank” for stories and instances that were memorable, but didn’t really fit the blog flow or maybe the story happened after the blog was posted.

That being said, over the coming days I’ll be posting from the blog bank. Hopefully you enjoy the stories as much as we hurt laughing about them.

Let’s start the bank posts with a few South African observations.

People don’t make their children wear shoes in public. We noticed several children running around the shopping centers without shoes. We couldn’t fathom this. In a country with such a high occurrence of disease you would think you would want to keep the opportunity to slice your foot open at a minimum. Evidently nobody really thinks about that.

Eight of us ate for about 1000 rand (100 bucks).

Rands make you feel rich! Everything is super cheap, and bank balances in rands make one feel like a high roller. The exchange was excellent. One US Dollar equaled about 12.3 Rand.

Blackouts are common in the cities as the electricity demand is great. Businesses and homes are expected to go dark for two hours to help conserve as much energy as possible. Generators are common in homes, and restaurants offer limited menus in the dark.

The culture of South Africa is to have domestic help. This is something that baffled many of us. It felt like slavery in a way, however, the jobs that are being provided help keep the unemployment rate hovering between 40 and 60 percent.

Thatch roofs are very, very common. It seems they would pose a fire hazard, but many roofs had sprinkler systems built in to the roof in case of fire. They are very cool in the summer, but sometimes are also cool in the winter. They do, however, look rustic African.

International flights are not so bad if you have decent seatmates, but when you don’t it can make or break a mood. Case in point. Heather had an interesting seatmate from Johannesburg to London. She had to provide assistance getting him dressed and up to go to the bathroom. Not very often do you have to help a flight attendant get someone to the toilet on an airplane. Heather hopes it never happens again. My interesting seatmate was quite the violent sleeper. She kicked, twitched, hit, and snored. It made the London to Atlanta flight a tough one.

"You live here long?"

One of our classmates will talk to anything. We have photographic evidence as proof. This is a trait I wish I had. No joke, dude can strike up a conversation with a brick wall. 

Taxis are not a preferred method of transportation. They are expected to bring in R500 (500 rand) per day. This means they stuff 10 pounds of stuff into a three pound bag. They drive erratically and haul as many people as they can stuff into the vans. Sadly, many people are killed each year due to taxi accidents and the lack of safety.

South African coach (bus) drivers are pretty amazing at what they do. They can fit a gigantic bus into an itty bitty space and not blink. Insane. There were times you’d see the whites of someone’s eyes in the bus next to you because you were just that close. Murphy and Steve did a great job hauling class XII around. 

These are just a few of the observations made while traveling the fascinating country of South Africa for two weeks. There were definitely some memories made, and I can't wait to share some of them.